Loud electric light sound tones in certain missions

Hello, everyone! I've done some searches in the forums, and looked in the troubleshooting on the wiki, but there's a problem that's been in Dark Mod for the past version or two that's now prevalent enough for me to log in and report. Not sure if it's an issue with the Dark Mod itself or just one model of light that someone developed and is using in more and more missions, but it's driving me nuts.

In several missions, electric lights are used and the tone the game has them emanate...well, I'm supposing it's supposed to be a soft hum, but instead it's a piercingly loud sine wave kind of tone, like you'd hear if you were taking a hearing aid test. It's literally deafening compared to the sounds in the rest of the game, and as more and more levels use this light, it's really cutting down on the levels I want to play. Since no other users seem to be reporting this, I'm wondering if it's because of my particular audio configuration. I am using EAX (through Creative ALchemy) on Windows 10 on a current Sound Blaster card, so I'm wondering if somehow the EAX processing is making the sound so damn loud.

The latest mission that seems to have this sound is "In The Black." I'm including a screenshot of one of the lamps in question. This one is in kind of an odd spot on an internal balcony railing, and I can hear it buzzing from well down the hall in another room. There are other rooms that have several of these lamps as well.

Is there any kind of tweaking I can do in the .pk4 files to silence this model of lamp until the issue is resolved? I really want to be able to play these missions without being deafened. I'm up for any kind of troubleshooting, or if you'd like me to make a recording from a USB mic of how loud the tone is compared to other sounds in the game to hear exactly what I'm experiencing.

You could probably track down the original sound files, lower the volume or change them completely and then replace the ones in your core TDM folder with those new ones. Provided the maps are using the default settings that will provide a lower level of sound. I know i've always had to turn them down in my missions by quite a bit because I too found them incredibly piercing.

the lamp doesn't have a default volume setting so they will be playing at the highest volume the sound files were recorded at.

I don't know of a way to alter them without the map maker fixing the volume settings on each light.

so you might have to play with EAX turned off on those maps which have those lights.

volume is 60db to - 60db, with 60db being the highest volume and -60db being silent or quiet.

Never tried it on TDM but on idtech4 you can edit individual sounds in game, this is done with the game running in window mode, for example at 800x600 rz, if you want to save the edit permanently, i assume the map should be out of the PK4 or I think you will not the able to save it or perhaps the editor makes a copy? I don't know, try it, just bring the console down type "editSounds" the sound editor opens and the sound (and for some reason lights) origins become visible, you then can select a sound (green boxes) by getting near them (use noclip if necessary) till it's name shows up and just click action (left mouse button) and edit its properties in the editor, then is just a matter of clicking the save map in the sound editor.

You can also edit the sound shader of that particular sound, but that i don't recommend, first because will change all sounds using that sound shader and second will not work if the map developer, implemented a volume spawnarg in the sound entity, that overrides the volume keyword on the sound shader itself, i'm not sure if this last fact also effects the sounds edited with the sound editor, afaik the sound editor edits the sound entity, not the sound shader it self, so when you change the volume on the sound editor i assume you are changing the volume spawnarg not the volume keyword on the sound shader, but i could be wrong.

Btw Volume zero is the original sound volume! That caused some confusion to me at first.

Shouldn't you be able to override it by adjusting the db levels from the sound shader file? That should fix it even if it's only a local file modification. Downside is that you'd have to do that every time you updated, unless it's a mission specific asset. In which case you could just tweak the soundshader and call it a day.

I was having this problem too - the crazy intense OOO! from lights in too many missions was making me abandon them as the sound makes me feel physically ill. Pretty sure this could result in actual hearing damage if you were exposed to that sound for too long.

But thanks very much to HMart - I followed his editSounds procedure on the console (required exiting from full screen mode) and set the sound of the yellow lights in Full Moon Fever (one of the worst offenders) to -50, saved it, and now they're completely silent. Should work whenever you encounter overly intense noises from lights or other sources.